Fit Person Living in a Fat World

Amalfi, Italia

  One evening at a small gathering I was sitting in between an older obese man and a yoga practicing trim 30 year old woman.  The woman was drinking a glass of sparkling water and eating some fresh veggies and a small kabob of olives and marinated tofu.  The old fat guy was drinking his third beer and eating a large pre dinner plate of bacon, salami cheese and fried something. With a full mouth of food the old fat guy looked at the 30 year old and said " I don't know how you eat the crap, I would never eat tofu".  The woman was suddenly uncomfortable and not able to respond to the man's comment.  I waited a moment to see her reacting and I could sense her retreating into herself.  If you know me personally you know that I can verbally annihilate people instantly, it's a gift that I work on controlling . I looked at him and said, "That's ok, we would never eat your heart attack food and could you move over, your taking up enough room for two people. Would you like some more bacon?"
It did shut him up, I am sure just temporally. But it seemed to not penetrate very far.
I have a pet peeve about why in this world it is ok to insult a person for going against the grain-choosing to live healthy-but it's tabu to tell someone that they are fat?  Ask any fit/healthy person how much flack that they actually take from the fat people and you will get some stories!  Fit/healthy people are a very remarkable and helpful resource.
I came across this article in the New Yorker I want to share.


Hospitals have had to buy special wheelchairs and operating tables to accommodate the obese, and revolving doors have had to be widened—the typical door went from about ten feet to about twelve feet across. An Indiana company called Goliath Casket has begun offering triple-wide coffins with reinforced hinges that can hold up to eleven hundred pounds. It has been estimated that Americans’ extra bulk costs the airlines a quarter of a billion dollars’ worth of jet fuel annually.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/20/090720crbo_books_kolbert#ixzz1I5H2put5